FAQ & Help for the Boards

General
#1

I’ve had a couple questions from people so I thought perhaps we should start an FAQ. Go ahead and ask your questions here and I’ll edit the answers into this top post. I don’t have all the answers - while I’ve used this kind of board before, there’s always more to learn - but I’ll try my best. I’m sure others can help out as well.

First off: There is a user FAQ that already answers the most common questions. You can find it at the top of the page, just under the graphic, in the line of blue buttons.

1 - Signatures

1-1) Can I put an image in my signature?

A) Yes. You can use the IMG tags (and any other tag, so far as I’m aware) in your signature. You can find out about all the different tags in the FAQ referred to at the top of this post. For ease of reference, just surround the URL where your image is located with IMG tags.

2 - Subscriptions

2-1) What’s this whole “subscribed” deal? I’m currently Not subscribed to any “forums” and have 1 subscribed thread listed. I didn’t find the word subscribed anywhere in the Forum’s own FAQ. The thread I’m “subscribed” to isn’t one I started.

A) You can subscribe to any thread that you start or reply to by checking ‘email notification’ just below the text entry box. You can also edit your post later and check this box. When you’re subscribed to a thread, you’ll automatically receive an email whenever someone (other than yourself) replies to that thread.

2-2) I’ve selected NO to Email notification of replies to my posts, but I’m still getting them. Is this a feature of the “subscribed” thread?

A) Yes. Subscribing to a thread overrides the ‘no email’ setting that you can set in your control panel (‘user cp’).

3 - Images

3-1) I put the image’s URL between IMG tags like I’m supposed to, but all that shows up is a link to the image. What’s wrong?

A) It could be a few different things. I’ll list them here as we discover them. The most likely thing is that your URL isn’t of the right format. It should be:

http://url.where.image/is/located/picture.jpg

or .gif or other supported file type. You may have a different number of ‘dots’ or slashes in there depending on how the host web site is set up. There definitely cannot be any sort of script in the URL or the image may not show up.

3-2) Is there a limit to the sizes of images?

A) For avatar images, there is a limit of 50x50 pixels or 60k, whichever is smaller. For all other images there is no limit I’m aware of.

3-3) I’m on dial-up, and loading some of the images people use takes a long time. What can I do?

A) There are settings in your control panel that can help. You can choose not to view signatures, and you can also choose not to view any images that are placed in posts - instead you’ll be given a link to the image.

#2

What are those yellow arrow icons for? The ones pointing Down beside thread subjects, and the ones pointing to the Right beside the last poster’s name? They’re a real clutter when you can’t discern a pattern…

#3

Originally posted by Player
What are those yellow arrow icons for? The ones pointing Down beside thread subjects, and the ones pointing to the Right beside the last poster’s name? They’re a real clutter when you can’t discern a pattern…

The arrows next to the thread subjects appear when there are unread posts in that thread. Clicking on the arrow will take you to the first post in that thread you haven’t read.

The arrows next to the name of the last poster to a thread, on the right hand side, take you to the last post in the thread.

#4

Originally posted by Krizzel
The arrows next to the thread subjects appear when there are unread posts in that thread. Clicking on the arrow will take you to the first post in that thread you haven’t read.

Not so, it appears. I’ve read the posts in these threads, but they still have the arrows next to the subjects. I do believe though, that the only ones that have arrows are threads that have been replied to on this date. I suppose a quick check in the morning will confirm this hypothesis!

#5

You have to be inactive for 5 minutes before the “unread” status of a message resets to “read”. You can also manually mark everything read by clicking the “Mark this Forum Read” link at the top right of the forum page with the thread listing.

There’a also a convenient link at the top left of the main page called “View New Posts” that acts like a search and give you a list of all the threads that have had new posts since your last visit.

Oh, and I just want to thank Krizzel for starting this thread and offering assistance, it is certainly a great help.

Finally, we’re always open for any suggestions so feel free to let me or Sam know if any of you have any questions or comments.

#6

Originally posted by Player
Not so, it appears. I’ve read the posts in these threads, but they still have the arrows next to the subjects. I do believe though, that the only ones that have arrows are threads that have been replied to on this date. I suppose a quick check in the morning will confirm this hypothesis!

Hmm…could be. I know they do seem to stick around for a while, but they aren’t on every thread. I hardly use them anymore because they seem to get jumbled in whatever mechanism tracks this (probably cookies). Then again the boards that I am familiar with have several forums, and I usually keep a ‘tab’ open on netscape for each.

The last post arrows always work for me and are pretty convenient though.

#7

Originally posted by darrell
[b]You have to be inactive for 5 minutes before the “unread” status of a message resets to “read”. You can also manually mark everything read by clicking the “Mark this Forum Read” link at the top right of the forum page with the thread listing.

There’a also a convenient link at the top left of the main page called “View New Posts” that acts like a search and give you a list of all the threads that have had new posts since your last visit.

Oh, and I just want to thank Krizzel for starting this thread and offering assistance, it is certainly a great help.

Finally, we’re always open for any suggestions so feel free to let me or Sam know if any of you have any questions or comments. [/b]

Ah, see there are always new things to learn!

Definitely thanks to you and Sam though for setting this all up! This is actually a board that is fun to use. :wink:

My first suggestion is to separate all the ‘taunts’ and threads for specific games out into their own forum. I’m not yet sure how popular a move it will be, though.

#8

Well it looks like more than a few people miss the old avatars from http://pbmforum.com, so I went ahead and added them to this site. Hopefully there won’t be any legal mess to prevent them from being used here.

Anyway, to change your avatar, just go to your User Control Panel by clicking the “user cp” at the top of any page and then click the link labelled “Edit Options” and finally the “Change Avatar” button at the bottom right of the page. You’ll be presented with a selection of avatars as well as the option to upload your own custom avatar, if you choose to use one.

#9

Originally posted by lionatus
[b]Whats with the Junior member bit?

And how do I change it? [/b]

It’s in your User control panel, click on “Edit Profile” and edit the “Custom User Text”.

#10

Are the 6 or 7 different game variants described in detail anywhere? I mean, for example, 2950 WOTR or 4th Age Last All.

I am unfamiliar with those and some of the other game variants.

Thank you.

#11

By default, these forums use cookies to track your session and login information so that you do no have to log in every time you visit the site.

If you can log in to the site, but you get “You are not logged in” errors anytime you try to post or do anything else, then the problem is that the forum was unable to write its session cookie (that contains your authentication information) to your computer. The next time the forum checked for that cookie (such as when you try to post) it was not there, hence the “You are not logged in” message.

There are two possible fixes for this problem:

1: Fix your browser so that cookies are allowed to be written from the “halo5.net” domain.

2: Stop using cookies to track your sessions. You can do this by going to your control panel (the “user cp” button at the top of the page will take you there) and clicking on the “Edit Options” link. From there, you will need to select “No” for the following options:
“Automatically login when you return to the site?”
“Browse board with cookies?”

If you go with the second option, your session information will be tracked with a session identifier in the URL, and will look like a bunch of gibberish in the “s=” variable in the URL. Also, this information will be lost once you leave the site or close your browser, meaning you will need to log in again each time you visit the site.